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The Savannah Cat Chat Community is a one-stop place for you to meet new people and share your love of Savannahs with like minded individuals, as well as a place to find answers to all of your Savannah questions. Register to post, ask questions and become involved with our awesome Savannah cat breed.

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Just to introduce myself...

Hi, I'm Per Lausund, and together with my wife I breed savannahs and bengals. Being in Norway we are restricted to F5s and later generations, but that works, too.
I'm also a veterinarian, albeit Norwegian (and Swedish, and that's EU for those of you outside Europe!), so I thought it might be helpful if I volunteered to run a vet's corner on the forum. Paige seemed to agree, so here we are.
I am not going to try to replace your vet or even try to run second opinions, but please feel free to post questions about cat health that you want answered and I'll do my best.
It's helpful if you write in the title what the problem you want discussed is, or the symptoms, so others can find it easily!
Always remember:If your cat seems sick it likely is, and it deserves a hands-on visit to your vet. But even so you might want to post something about it here so others (and myself!) can learn. It might just be the symptom somebody else is wondering about...

Oh, and remember: I´m on CET, that´s at least six hours ahead of you on the other side of the Atlantic!

I think you will be a valuable resource and thank you for agreeing to give your opinion, even if as you say that does not replace taking our cats to our vets! Sometimes it is good to have that second opinion, or sometimes find out if symptoms really do warrant a trip to a vet...

Hello Per, I have a question for you. It's pertaining to a Chausie queen, not a Savannah, but the two breeds often have similar issues. This was a young queen that developed a surprising amount of mammary development during a false pregnancy. The mammary glands became swollen and sore. The condition persisted long after the false pregnancy was over. When she became pregnant later, the mammary glands became swollen very early in the pregnancy. By the time the kittens were born, the glands were painful and engorged. I had to hand-feed the kittens until they were weaning age, as it was nearly impossible for them to nurse. I saw the same kind of exaggerated and prolonged mammary swelling several other times. I finally realized it was mammary hyperplasia. My generalist vet had not dealt with that before, but it didn't matter. By then I had decided to spay the queen because it was obvious that it was neither kind nor practical to keep breeding her. By the time I realized what I was dealing with, I had been breeding the queen for 2 years. She didn't suffer anything but some discomfort from the swelling. However, I remember reading somewhere that mammary hyperplasia can lead to mammary ulcers and infections. In the future, if I see mammary hyperplasia in, for example, female relatives of the queen, should they be spayed immediately? In other words, just how risky is the condition? Thanks.